"Oh, don't! Please don't! It is so hard. I can't tell what mother will say. And—there is Mr. Stirling." "He is only a friend. He has no real authority over me." Maurice laughed joyously, holding her fast. "My own! My own!" he repeated, with a radiance of delight which infected her and bore her, metaphorically, off her feet. It was like being carried along on a whirlwind. "I am of an age to decide for myself. And you—my darling—" "If—mother—" she faltered. "But I'm afraid—I'm afraid—she won't—" "Don't be afraid. Why should you? Now we know that we love, all else is nothing. We may face the world without a doubt." This was all very well; but he did not know Mrs. Winton. "Even if obstacles do arise, it will only be for a time. You are mine now—mine absolutely. While you and I are true one to another, nothing can finally separate us." He had his way. He had won a confession of her love; and his ardour awoke a reflection in her. For the moment, doubts were mastered, and she consented to put them aside, to yield herself to him. Nothing—just then!—seemed of importance, beyond the fact that each loved the other. Time fled on wings as they talked; and they had the place to themselves. They compared notes as to the beginnings of love on either side. Maurice told her what lovely eyes she had, and how she had taken him captive with her first glance, her first smile. Doris more cautiously admitted that he from the first had seemed unlike other men. They laughed over some recollections; and they lived through once more the crucial hour of her difficult rock-climb. Then they reverted to his early life; and he told her many things connected with his past,—how seldom he had been allowed to see his own people; how his holidays had been spent with comparative strangers, or else at school. Doris said how she had taken to the gentle Winnie; and he replied earnestly that she should see Winnie as often as she chose,—but not Jane! She was silent, knowing that he could not, even for her sake, repudiate the relationship. And there was his mother too. A chill crept through her at the thought that she, some day, would be Mrs. Morris' daughter-in-law,—and Jane's sister-in-law! And what—oh, what—would her mother say? It was Mrs. Winton—not the Rector— whom she feared; and still more, opposition in herself. She began to wonder how she could have so completely, given in to his urgency. At the first she had felt everything to be changed by this discovery; she had looked upon him as impossible. And now — here was she already engaged to marry him! Subject, no doubt, to her parents' consent; yet provisionally engaged. Had she been too impulsive, too easily carried away? Would it not have been wiser, more sensible, at least to have insisted on time for consideration?